Stupid, moronic fun...

Pandafgolf is dumb. I'll admit it. It's a moronic game. And it's adicting...good luck, folks...have fun...

One link...two reasons...make that three...

Okay, linking to a blog called I am Kyle's self-indulgence for three reasons. First, he rails on the new Achiever's Edition of The Big Lebowski. No new footage, no new interviews or making of docs or commentaries. The best they have to offer in terms of actual content is a cleaner transfer. But it does come with a Lebowski shammy to clean your bowling ball and four coasters. And it's in a nice box. Stupid. Dumb. I'm not buying it. Please, nobody get it for me as a gift either. Thanks.

Two, I'm digging Kyle's blog in general. Never saw it before today, but it's gonna be a regular read for me now. A lot of his ideas and rants are somewhat familiar to me - including his link about banned book week, giving a little shout out here. My wife is a school librarian who opens her library orientation each year at her school by welcoming the students to "the most dangerous room in the building." Books open minds. There's not a bigger deal out there than that. Every kid who's trying to find their way, who's feeling unsure about themselves, can pick up a book and find something that speaks to them. Those books need to be made available as much as possible to increase the odds that the right kid will find the right book at the right time. Support Banned Book Week - read a Banned Book. I'll most highly recommend #37 - The Handmaid's Tale, #52 Brave New World, #69 Slaughterhouse-Five, and #76 Where Did I Come From? - all are among my favorites.

And, third, I like the option of choosing your own skin on Kyle's blog. It's on the main page, way down at the bottom. That's something I need to work on being able to do. I'm impressed with CSS stuff, and I haven't a clue how to do it. Sometime in the future, perhaps...

Oh, and the photo has nothing to do with the blog other than both are about a guy named Kyle. I searched Google for a photo of "kyle", and that's the one that entertained me most, though this was a close second.

Fat...seriously fat...

Caught a commerical for the new Meat'Normous Omlet Sandwich at Burger King today. Seems that it's - according to a Burger King spokesman - "packed with meat. On top of meat. On top of...meat." The release goes on to say "[i]t's like an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet on a bun." The sandwich has three slices of bacon, two slices of ham, a big sausage patty, two eggs, two slices of cheese, and a specialty bun. People will die, I tell you...die... Burger King hasn't even posted the nutritional information on their website. Admittedly, the sandwich has only been on the market for three days now, but I'm thinking someobody in the corporation knew the beast was coming and might've been able to find the nutritional info and get it to the IT department.

But, then again, we are living in the world of the monster thickburger, pictured above. 1420 calories in the one burger, along with 107 grams of fat. Two-thirds of a pound of beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese, and mayonaise - to top it off, you know, you know.

I'll admit that I have a serious weakness for sweets - the pumpkin ice cream at the Cone is a particular favorite, as is pretty much anything else pumpkin, but I try to limit my intake somewhat. Anybody who makes a conscious effort to down something called meat'normous or monster thickburger pretty much doesn't give a diddly darn for their arteries.

C'mon folks, hasn't anybody seen Super Size Me, it's a fine film.

Ah, to switch or not to switch...

Tons of space, loads of functionality, customized advertisements based on what my email talks about...I've set up a gmail account but haven't started actually using it yet...but should I switch to it full time?...anybody out there have any opinions based on experience?

Sappy? Cheesy? For some reason, no...

I'll readily admit it: I can't stand Notre Dame. I hate the wholier-than-thou attitude that their fans have, as though God himself were actually giving a crap about whether their school's football team wins a big game or not. I hate the over-inflated image of their football program as having some sort of God-given right to being in the top ten year in and year out. I hate their tv contract with NBC, and I hate the Golden Dome and Touchdown Jesus. In the 1980's and 1990's, I rooted for the Miami Hurricanes almost just to spite the people around Southern Indiana who rooted for Notre Dame. In the fight of Catholics vs. Convicts, I went for the convicts.

All that being said, this is a really nice, touching story. Sounds like Weis is a good guy.

Trying it again...

I got a couple of emails asking whether I'd put the movies from yesterday's post in order. Nope, but I will now...

Five favorite Johnny Depp movies

1. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
2. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
3. Edward Scissorhands
4. Pirates of the Caribbean
5. Donnie Brasco

Five favorite Val Kilmer

1. The Saint
2. Heat
3. Willow
4. Tombstone
5. Batman Forever

Five favorite movies that have a former Kids in the Hall member

1. Galaxy Quest
2. Dick
3. A Bug's Life
4. Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy
5. Lilo & Stitch

Five favorite movies from SNL skits

1. The Blues Brothers
2. All You Need is Cash (the Ruttles)
3. Wayne's World
4. A Mighty Wind
5. The Ladies Man

Five favorite tv shows into movies

1. Maverick
2. The Fugitive
3. Mission: Impossible
4. Dragnet
5. Charlie's Angels

...and I'll be nice enough to add in a few more fives so there's something original around here...

Five favorite movies made into TV series

1. M*A*S*H
2. Highlander
3. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
4. Clueless
5. Weird Science

Five favorite Kevin Smith films

1. Chasing Amy
2. Clerks
3. Dogma
4. Mallrats
5. Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back

Five favorite films with former Friends

1. The Whole Nine Yards
2. Madagascar
3. The Opposite of Sex
4. Scream
5. Office Space

Five favorite Brad Pitt films

1. Fight Club
2. Snatch
3. Ocean's Eleven
4. A River Runs Through It
5. Interview With a Vampire

Five favorite Edward Norton films

1. Fight Club
2. American History X
3. 25th Hour
4. The Italian Job
5. Keeping the Faith (tie)
   Rounders

If anybody has suggestions for other top five lists that you'd like to see, give an email...

Goin' five by five...

Five favorite Johnny Depp movies

• Once Upon a Time in Mexico
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Donnie Brasco
• Edward Scissorhands
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Five favorite Val Kilmer

• Heat
• Batman Forever
• Willow
• The Saint
• Tombstone

Five favorite movies that have a former Kids in the Hall member

• A Bug's Life
• Galaxy Quest
• Dick
• Lilo & Stitch
• Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy

Five favorite movies from SNL skits

• The Ladies Man
• All You Need is Cash (the Ruttles
• A Mighty Wind
• The Blues Brothers
• Wayne's World

Five favorite tv shows into movies

• Mission: Impossible
• Dragnet
• The Fugitive
• Maverick
• Charlie's Angels

High level tennis is town...

Good tennis this weekend (started today, admittedly) at the Mason tennis courts - across from Kings Island. Five universities with local Cincy ties are playing in various matchups from today through Sunday. One of my formal students - Tony Teufel - plays for the University of Louisville, and he'll be here playing against Michigan State, Brown, Indiana, and Wake Forest. It's $4 to get in and a whole lot of tennis to be watched.

So, take a look at the schedule, and head that way to support the local boys.

This is the end...

That's it...no more free time for me...it's pretty much the end of things for me...

I blame Steve Duke for introducing me to Google Earth, another free service from Google's amazing labs. A while back, Google released Keyhole - a pretty similar service, maybe even the same thing, but Keyhole was a free trial service with a payment due at the end of the trial. I gave Keyhole a try but let the thing lapse when I didn't want to pay up.

Now, however, Google has made Google Earth a free service, and it's absolutely incredible. You do have to make a small download, but the payoff is phenomenal. The view begins at the entire globe, zooming down to wherever you're chosen to see - from the largest city smallest home. I've looked at my house; Princeton High School; the Cincinnati Tennis Club (where you can see people playing doubles); Niagra Falls; Las Vegas; the Grand Canyon (where I retraced my hike from rim-to-rim-and-back); the Sydney Opera House; Manhatten; Mount Saint Helens; Aberdeen, Scotland (looking for my overseas dorm); Disney World; Paris, France (for the Eifel Tower and Roland Garos); the Secret City in Beijing; the Hoover Dam; and the Golden Gate Bridge.

If it were just the satellite images, themselves, that would be pretty amazing, but Google Earth adds in 3d buildings to provide fly-throughs for a number of major cities - including Las Vegas, NYC, Cincinnati - and provides services like driving tours and directions from place to place. It's absolutely amazing, and you can grab a bunch of free sight-seeing tours and overlays (including for the New Orleans Hurricane damage):

• Hurricane map overlays
• Top sightseeing tours
• Product tour
• Keyhole's community bulletin boards
• Google Maps article
• Another article with points to look at

Phenomenal...abso-freakin' phenomenal...

Let your freak flag fly...full staff...

In the past few years, I've been noticing more and more instinces where the US flag is being flown at half staff than I remember from when I was young. Admittedly, it could be that it wasn't something that I noticed lo those many years ago, but I'm thinking that our current administration and cultural alimate have made flying the flag at half staff more acceptable.

Right now, I see a mixture of half and full staffs around our area. I know it's not at half staff for Chief Justice Renquist, because according to the US Flag Code, that's only supposed to be for ten days. I know that Bush has proclaimed that flags be at half staff for the victims of Katrina until sunset today so I'm thinking that flags should be all at full staff tomorrow morning, right? I'm betting that it'll be far from complete in the remembereance of that, though.

And I was surprised to see who had the power to decree a half staff change. I always assumed that it was up to whoever put out the flag - a homeowner for their own home, a mayor for his town, a governor for his state, and a president for the whole country, but it turns out that it's strictly down to Presidents and Governors who have the power (by law and custom).

I'm to bed now, but there might be more crabbing about the flags to come...I don't know that I've yet said what I wanted to say...

Caveman foosball...

I can't believe it's taken me this long to get this one posted up here. Heck, I spent half of my plan bell all of last year just playing this game against Kevin George - my student helper during 9th bell. Not always in the mood to get work done by the end of the day, I often challenged Gus to a game of caveman foosball. Admittedly, he was probably better at the game than I was, but it was still really fun. Now, playing the computer just isn't as much fun...

Give 'em the finger...

Pointless online gaming... taking a break from grading notebooks and readying the grades to go online... have some fun flicking barbarians... check the graphic to see my high score...

A glimpse into my disease...

Admittedly, I have a few issues. I'm afraid of spiders, and every time I step over a sewer grate right after getting out of my car, I hold my car keys a little unreasonably tightly because I'm scared that I'm going to drop the keys into the grate.

But I'm thinking about another little issue that I have: a compulsion to put together themed-compilation cds of music. Right now I'm somewhat casually working on like five different cd's...

Outlaw Country

In the late 60's, a number of singers rebelled against the Nashville sound machine production and produced themselves and their rough-around-the-edges voices. I kind of enjoy the Guy Clark, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, and a lot of the rest of the crew, so I'm putting together a bit of my favorites of the genre.

Train songs

In listening to the Guy Clark cd, I heard "Texas-1947", his song about waiting for the train to come, which made me think of "Panama Limited" by Tom Rush and "City of New Orleans" by Arlo Guthrie and a half dozen other train songs that I love and that all have some common theme and feeling.

Sully's wedding CD

I was the best man at a wedding this summer, and the groom had music planned out perfectly - well, perfectly for them - that he specifically wanted the DJ to play. Instead, the DJ played some of the songs and ignored the rest of the list. I've taken it upon myself to correct this by burning a couple of CDs of the right music. There are, of course, other options.

90's pop

A full cd of my favorite early-90's pop music: "MMMBop", "How Bizarre", "Fly"...and their ilk...

Summer songs

"Summer Rain" by U2, "Cruel Summer" by Bananarama, "Summertime Blues" by Eddie Cochran, "In the Summer Time" by Mungo Jerry...and lots more

...and this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of others that I've done...

And on the 8th Day...

Songs about God and the Devil...

Alyssa's Lullabyes

Children's songs - two cd's, one upbeat, one slower - for Amy Goohs-Hyphen's baby shower

Let's Get Folky

Folk music collection...died at eight cassettes...might be reborn on cd someday...

The 80's

At one point I had 600+ 80's songs and edited them down into 18 theme-based cd's of my favorites

Instrumentals

Exactly what it says - two cd's, one upbeat, one more relaxing

Clean Beasties

I like the Beastie Boys, and I wanted clean cds to play at school

The Funkiest of the Funky

The finest funk of the 70's...

Down in the Delta

Covers of Elvis songs, songs about Elvis himself, and songs about Memphis - one of my finest compilations, I think

I don't honestly know whether I'm typing this because I'm worried or because I want more suggestions or if I just want suggestions of what to put on some of the working compilations. Seriously, something's wrong with me.

Freedom of the press...

Gotta love it...

The Hamilton Journal-News - stellar local paper for Hamilton!, Ohio, near where I live - runs a daily column called the Community Voice. The basic premise is that the people in the community need/deserve/want an outlet to allow their voices to be heard. The reality is that the newspaper accepts mail, email, or phone calls with people's comments, and those comments are published in the column without editing or crediting. The comments are simply printed without names attached.

The strength of this is in the direct connection between "the public" and "the media". If someone has a beef, they call in, state their case, and the Journal-News prints it. Perhaps a reporter begins an investiagation, perhaps another citizen then calls to comment, perhaps a police officer reads the comment and checks the situation out.

The weakness of this is that none of the journalistic scruples or ethics are being followed. Sources are not checked, bylines are not provided for the comments, and the comments are not researched for truthfulness.

To me, this is pure comedy.

I do warn you that registration is required, but feel free to register with a fake email address. Works for me.

Crap found while I should be working...

Just saw on Archie McPhee's website that there's a new deluxe librarian action figure - 'cause the original just wasn't cool enough, apparently. So, now it's a question of trying to find the cheapest prices to get my wife a set so she can re-enact her library cart drill team heydays.

But, in searching around, I found a few other entertaining bibliophilic websites...

• Unfortunate children's books
• The Laughing Librarian's blog
• A Giles action figure
• J's Scratchpad (another librarian blog)
• Bulk pricing for the librarian action figure
• The Giles figure reviewed
• The Eclectic Librarian blog
• A playset for your librarian action figures

Oodles of comics...

Ah, the sweet bliss of online comics.

Growing up, my parents got the daily newspaper from Louisville - across the river from the old home town, and I would dutifully read the comics, the sports, and some of the front page pretty much every day. If I didn't, I'd never know just how Funky Winkerbean was going to outwit the band director, how the Wizard of Id was going to make the king happy, or how BC was going to smack me in the face with some religious message every chance they got. But when I got my own place and tried to subscribe to the Cincinnati Enquirer, I had no luck. They didn't deliver the first week, only delivered half of the second week, and finally gave up for the third. Since then, I've been largely newspaperless and now I pretty much get my news - and comics - from the internet.

Found a number of new comics today that I'm enjoying for the moment. First, there's the massive collection of online comics at Tapestry where they provide you with RSS feeds so you can know immediately when a new comic has come out. I especially recommend Alien Loves Predator from that collection (I won't link directly 'cause it's not toally school appropriate, though it is hilarious). There's also Order of the Stick (same problem), a webcomic based around a (okay, admitting my dorky heritage) Dungeons and Dragons adventure. Sadly, I get most of the jokes.

Let me also recommend Toothpaste for Dinner, though certainly not for its art quality. Sheesh...

Then there's the granddaddy of them all - Red Meat (again, no linky because of subject matter)...fun stuff, though, I promise...

So, now you have things to search for...go forth and waste time...I'm off to grade some tests and have a lil' din...

Blogs...

Some blogs that I check regularly...

• You Know It.
• The Forager Blog
• Management by Baseball
• Cincinnati blog
• Purrplexity
• ScienceBase
• Comic Books Commentary
• Funny Book Musings

In case you cared...

The future or a random belch?

The best way that you can contribute to something useful on the web (short of making some sort of hurricane donation, admittedly) is to add in some piece of knowledge on Wikipedia.

If you haven't yet heard of Wikipedia, you've been missing out on a huge revolution in what the internet is capable of. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written entirely by the people who read it. Each one has contributed some piece of knowledge (in some cases, a whole lot of knowledge), and every new person who reads that article has the ability to edit and/or add to the article they are reading.

To some, this sounds like an opportunity to lower the standards to the lowest common denomenator, to bring everything down to the worst level and to result in garbage, but it doesn't work that way. The quality far outweighs the crap, and the collection of knowledge is growing moment by moment in an almost exponential form.

They have articles on the most esoteric of information as well as on much more grand topics. And if there's anything that you can't find an article on, you can write that article, as I did.

Or, you can start your own Wiki on whatever you like...

Ah, Hunter...ya bugger...

Caught a note this morning saying that Hunter S. Thompson's suicide note - or at least apparent suicide note - is going to be published in Rolling Stone. Seems kind of a sick thing. I know that Thompson had a huge relationship with the magazine - publishing his greatest works in serialized form there before they came out as books - but it just seems a rather morbid thing to me. Much less morbid than the weird memorial service held recently for him. Feel free to help fund the service by buying some artwork of it.

I am a huge fan of Hunter's writing. Fear and Loathing in las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, The Great Shark Hunt, Hells Angels, and "The Search for the Brown Buffalo" are some of the finest things that I've read. When he was inspired, Hunter could produce amazingly moving prose that seemed to be coming directly from his brain without editing or consideration. At his best, his typewriter and mojo machine (an early version of a fax machine that he used to transmit his early stories) spewed forth a venom that captured a near-perfect version of his world.

At his worst, his writing was a poor copy of his best stuff. He would be wacky and nasty and drgu-addled in attempts to recapture the glory of his great works. he walked a fine edge, and when it worked it was magnificent, glorious writing. His description of the depression that set into the young people after the revolution of the 60's appeared to lose steam and fall back...

We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark— the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

...was incredible and captured the feeling that I can only imagine - hope dashed against the rocks for no reason at all.

Feel free to read more of his greatest quotes over here.

All that being said, he was a craphole of a man in a lot of ways. I read a biography of him once and tried to avoid knowing much about him after that. He went into the military and shirked his duties, doing nearly everything he could to earn a discharge. He was abusive and violent toward his first wife. He was a petty thief as a child, and he could be amazingly cruel. He was a drunk and a drug user. At public appearances, he would often show up drunk and simply insult the crowd for their stupid questions, never providing anything but a show of how to be a boar.

My mother once got tickets to go see Hunter speak because she knew that I really liked his writings. I declined the tickets because I had begun to understand that just because someone can make great things doesn't make them a great person.

Hunter is gone, and his words will be missed. I don't know, however, whether the man himself will be nearly so missed.

Lil' respect for the man...

This morning at around 1:15 New York time, Andre Agassi completed a comeback from two sets down against James Blake to move to his tenth US Open semifinals (in twenty appearances). He'll face Robbie Ginepri, an unseeded American, for the right to get to the finals.

I doubt that any tennis player has had the sort of career arc that Agassi has had

• young turk with cocky style who was supposed to be the next great thing
• disappointment who made a few finals but couldn't break through
• surprise Wimbledon champion
• Gone in 1993 (played in only two slams, made it past the 1st round in one)
• One of the best players in the world in '94 and '95
• totally gone in '97 (played in one slam, had to player the challenger's circuit)
• best player in the world in '99 (two slam titles, one final) - including a French title which seemed to move him into "all-time great" since it completed his career slam
• now elder statesman who has the talent but not quite the youth to compete with the big boys week in and week out

Is there another player in any sport who showed such promise, disappointed us, broke through, disappeared, came back, disappeared, and came back to the sort of late career respect and adulation that Agassi has?

I started out not being able to stand Agassi. he did everything wrong: stood inside the service line, swung at volleys, swung with an open stance, grunted, didn't do it the right way. He was the absolute antithesis of Pete Sampras: the classic serve-and-volleyer, the less exciting, the stoic.

I've come to love watching Andre's game. Clearly he was a harbinger of the modern power game, with everyone swinging at volleys, all the men swinging with open stances, people owning the match by stepping inside the court. He was a paradigm shift that just hadn't come through yet. He was the peak of the coming wave that hadn't yet washed over us.

And, I've come to realize that he seems to be a heck of a guy. He has a charitable foundation, sponsors a college preparatory academy, wrote a beautiful article in SI about his father's dedication, and gave a marvelous induction speech when his wife, Steffi, was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. From everything I've heard, he appears to be a wonderful father and family man.

Though I will be honest in that there are some freaky fans that he seems to inspire.

And he has done what looks like some seriously stupid stuff here and there - though I'm guessing he got paid for this one.

Personalization...blessing and curse...

Google is now offering the opportunity to personalize your homepage setting it up so that just the news you want to see shows up for you. This works through a thing called RSS which allows a news (or other provider) to send updates directly to your webpage (my personalized google, for example) where just the headlines I want show up. For example, I've chosen to see the major headlines from Google's news, CNN, the Cincinnati Enquirer (but just local news there - could've chosen dining if I'd wanted to, or any of a couple fodzen other options), News Askew headlines (in case Kevin Smith does something important, you know), local movie times, the weather, a word of the day, and weird news from Reuters.

This is an awesome thing, right? I get just the news I care about, see the headlines I want and can click to read more.

Or is it?

It also means that I don't learn about things that I haven't previously said interest me. In one of my very earliest posts, I mentioned EPIC 2014, a scary view of the future of the internet. Check it if you haven't previously.

All that being said, I've got my personalized google page as my new homepage...so...

A list for you...

Recently, Time magazine announced their 50 coolest websites of 2005.

I haven't been through all of them, but I'm thinking there might be something for you to check out on the list.

Plus, it'll tell you how to start your very own blog so you can add something back to the world wide web community. Something valuable, like this page...

Where am I?

That question could be easier and easier to answer if some of the online mapping services have their way.

I read a Discover magazine article a few months back in which the author was commenting on his excitement over the combination of technologies that seem to be evolving in the field of online map providers.

The first technology that he mentioned was called Keyhole, a subscription service provided through Google which uses satellite technology to provide an incredible fly-over view of anywhere (at least in North America, I haven't checked my old haunts in Aberdeen.) Keyhole does offer a free trial of their service, which I took advantage of and which showed me that it's an absolutely incredible service, something to really be seen as it allows you to begin with a view of the entire globe and to fly down to see details as small as cars in driveways (I did find my houses's previous owners' car on their pictures), and some users have taken advantage to provide amazing tours which they've made available flying along coastlines and through beautiful countryside, past chasms of buildings and around intricate old city streets.

The author also mentions Blockview, an Amazon service where the programmers have combined the online mapping technology with street-level photographs of highly-populated areas to allow you to not just plot your destination and path there from above, but to also see what each block looks like from street level, allowing yourself to see which buildings are nearby, which restaurants are by your night's movie, and to see just what you'll see as you need to make your turn. This one I haven't yet tried, but it sounds pretty cool.

The article linked from the title comes from my hometown paper - the Louisville Courier-Journal - and compared some of the major features of Google maps and MSN's Virtual Earth project, both of which use a much more user-friendly interface than mapquest, which is still probably the one I'd go to for directions to and fro - which I've been checking on one of the other sites - like Virtual Earth to get a better idea of what the route as written will look for me.

Which leaves me with the final thought, as it did to the Discover author: now I just need it all in one place. I want to be able to type in my address and my destination address. I want the directions to come back and to be able to see an aerial view (either map or satellite view, ideally both options) and a street-level movie of my trip - all from the same site. We're not there just yet, but considering that I grew up actually using a big, folding map in my car when Dad was driving us around Arizona, we're already in the space age to me.

The best recipe...hands down...

Got up this morning and took my semi-weekly turn at Sunday morning breakfast. Karlen's a wonderufl dinner cook, but for some reason any sort of pancake, waffle, french toast breakfast comes down to me. This morning, instead of simply cracking the couple of eggs and dropping in a modicum of milk, I turned to the most amazing cookbook out there to see what they had to say about things. Probably half an hour later, I was trying what has to be the best french toast I've ever had. Absolutely amazing stuff...perfect...as the cookbook says, "custardlike center surrounded by crisp, light egg wash fried to a perfect golden brown." No syrup necessary for this one, perfect as they were.

And I always like using the America's Test Kitchen staff's cookbook because I so love the style in which they develop their recipes. It's the most incredible application and explanation of the scientific method at work. First, they define what they want - a good roast has to be crunchy on the outside but favorful and moist inside and shouldn't take more than two hours to prepare, for example - so they can judge their attempts against perfection. Second, they research their prey, finding dozens of recipes from all sorts of sources - cookbooks, family histories, childhood memories - and find the commonalities and variables. Third, they make the recipe changing one variable at a time - in the french toast recipe, for example, they began with a standard cooking method and bread, first varrying the egg/milk ratio to get that perfect, then moving on to the flavorings, changing one at a time until they find the perfect procedure.

With each recipe comes a tale of how the recipe came about, retelling their process of searching for perfection - and there's always the bonus that the recipes are darn near perfect. I haven't yet found a recipe in thier cookbook that didn't work amazingly well, and they typically tell you what substitutions can be made and why each substitution works.

And they've got a bi-monthly magazine that it looks like we'll be getting (cheap second subscription for us after ordering a gift subscription for somebody else's birthday present.

Grab bag...

Lots of stuff on the mind here...thought I'd just throw some of them out and maybe not manage a large post today...depends on how tennis and mowing the lawn and a party this evening go...

• First, ESPN reports that Vijay Singh had to pull out of this week's PGA event. As they reported "Singh could not return to defend his title because he injured his back playing table tennis." Okay, it's one thing when a pudgy guy like me hurts himself doing something stupid, but for Vijay, some kind of professional athlete, it's kind of entertaining.



• Second, professional athletes are showing their generosity - and I don't even imagine that it's just athelets, other less famous people are doing amazing work - in a lot of different ways toward the New Orleans recovery and relief efforts.



• Third, heard the briefest bit of an NPR report saying that the desctruction in New Orleans had been at least partially predicted in an article in Scientific American in 2001, postulating what might happen if a category 5 hurricane hit the city. I haven't had a chance to do more than skim the first of five pages of the article, but I want to throw the link to it out there.



• Fourth, Tony Horton - friend of mine, former athletic trainer at PHS, current EMT - is on his way toward Jackson, Miss to do what he (as part of an emergency response team) can do to help anyone in the Gulf. I'll be following his progress here
.


• Fifth, interesting and touching article on why a fan rushed the field at a recent Seattle Mariners game.

Because when I think mental health...

Ah, well...

possible steps to take if you want to eat healthy and possibly loose some weight...let's see, we could...

• eat less, exercise more?...nah...
• cut out carbohydrates?...nope...
• eliminate processed sugars?...not tasty
• cut portions in half?...but my Big Mac...
• eat how the Bible tells me to?...Yeah!

That's what you should do, eat what the Bible tells you to eat. I certainly am not one to test the infallibility of the Lord, but I'm thinking I would want to see his nutritionist degree before putting all my faith in His diet.

Though I have heard that these taste like ambrosia...or was it mana...I haven't personally tried one myself, so I can neither recommend having or avoiding one.

PS - Apparently the Bible Bar isn't the only such food out there. The House of David has an entire line of bible-based food items. (Free Bible with any purchase over $100. Seriously.)

PPS - In case you're curious, here are the foods: wheat, barley, honey, olive oil, figs, pomegranates and grapes. Mmmm...sounds tasty.

I'm always amazed at what people are obsessed with...

Manholes... seriously, an entire site devoted to manholes.

Pictures of manholes...trivia about manholes...manhole t-shirts...manhole gifts...

Give what you can...smartly...

Give what you can, folks. I know that many of you are amazingly generous through our Pasta for Pennies campaign and through other local organziations, and I tend to like to give of my time and money locally, but this is one of the worst disasters in our history.

• FEMA's list of suggested donation agencies
• How to donate through Red Cross
• What and how not to donate